Twitter marketing strategy for business

Twitter is an excellent social media marketing tool because it is inexpensive, it is a fantastic way to connect with people and other busi...

Twitter is an excellent social media marketing tool because it is inexpensive, it is a fantastic way to connect with people and other businesses, is an effective way to build brand awareness, provide your listeners with valuable information, and spy on other businesses.  You can learn a lot from other businesses.  Pay close attention to industry-specific headlines, your competitors and what your customers are saying. Without fully copying what other businesses are doing, you can see what type of tweets or ads customers are engaging in, and can learn from them before you start your own marketing strategy.

Twitter is particularly important for managing your online reputation, customer service, offering promotions and discounts, and promoting your business.  In fact, 60% of people bought from a small or medium-sized business did so because of Twitter.  Visual cues on Twitter are a huge selling factor due to the fact that you are limited to 140 characters, and visualization is helpful to add to any tweet. We are also conditioned to pay attention to aesthetically pleasing photos, drawing more attention to a tweet if it is accompanied by a beautiful or intriguing image.

YOUR TWITTER ACCOUNT SETUP

Your Twitter page will show the entire world who you are and what you represent.  Therefore, everything you post should accurately reflect you.  There are five main parts of your Twitter Page:

• Twitter @username – Your username is your Twitter handle.  Your handle is what identifies you on Twitter.  You have 15 characters.  Select something that is identifiable to your business, so either pick the same or something similar to your business name.
• Profile Picture – Your profile picture should represent your business, probably a business logo.  Something that is very identifiable.
• Bio – Your bio allows you to tell people who you are, what makes you who you are, why they should follow you, what you have to offer, any important information about your business such as your contact information, website URL, etc.  You only have 160 characters so make it count.
• Header Photo – Your header photo is a virtual billboard if you will.  You this to display feature products, services, events, promotions, etc.  This graphic should often be changed to reflect the most important aspect of your business at the time.  Your header photo is a spotlight location!
• Pinned Tweet – Your pinned tweet is an important tweet that you want to be pinned at the top of your profile.  This should be used to display your latest news, product developments, discounts or promotions, or upcoming events.

Once you have successfully created your account and have your page setup, you can begin connecting with people and other businesses.

TYPES OF MARKETING CONTENT FOR TWITTER

Simple Text

Twitter requires all tweets be 140 characters or shorter.  Text is common, especially in tweets, RTs (retweets), replies (@replies), and mentions (@mentions).  Most text tweets include interesting facts, tips, inspirational or motivating quotes, or asks for RTs.  Most text-based tweets do contain a link to some other website.  It is also important to note that text tweets are by far the most used tweets.

Photos

Just like with Facebook, photos are much more efficient at grabbing someone’s attention.  Color is the significance here.  Color helps people retain information longer and increases a reader’s attention span.  Photos are perfect on Twitter with the amount of information on a user’s feed. Sometimes, when you scroll through Twitter, there is so much information coming at you so fast in tiny bursts of 140 characters. If information is posted with a different type of medium, such as a photo, people will be more likely to stop and check out the information, rather than seeing just plain text, much like the rest of the tweets out there that are flying by. Post a photo of your products, with simple, unique text.  You need to be creative to find ways to incorporate your brand into fun photos.  All types of photos get shared on Twitter, but humor gets the most shares.

Videos

Videos are quite useful when used correctly, but they need to be short and simple.  Use videos to give a glimpse into your team, how to use your products, a behind the scene look at your business, or some other informative piece of information that people will find value in. You can even post snippets of a longer video onto Twitter and send people back to your website or your YouTube channel to learn more, incorporating your social media platforms into one another.

Slideshares

Slideshares are always good, especially for providing informative and educational pieces of information.  These are good for establishing yourself as a leader in an industry.  Create one of these instead of writing a blog entry for example.  Lessons learned, how-to’s, industry information, etc. They’re a great way to engage with your followers and allow them to click through at their own pace. If one part isn’t interesting to them, they can easily skip to the next slide without having to wait it out in a video and get frustrated or lose interest. This also allows you to use photos with text, opening up a broader spectrum of blogging.

News Summaries

Twitter allows news organizations and business owners to tweet expanded tweets.  The tweet expands allowing you to see an enlarged view of the content and the link provided.  You can see a preview of the headline, an introduction and then can continue to the external website to read the rest of the article.  It is always good to share current events with your followers, but you can also use this feature for your business. This will also hook people into your blog, newsroom, or article more than a standard text tweet will. By seeing a little bit more of the content and the actual headline, people will be more enthused to click the link and head to the corresponding website.

Links

Lots of people tweet with links, but remember to keep it short, use hashtags when possible and make it clear what you want the user to do.  If you want them to visit your website, tell them so.  If you want them to follow you, tell them that.  Be specific and up front. Twitter is not the place to be coy and give long-winded paragraphs of information. Simply tweet for them to visit the link to your website below to learn more about a new product. Include a picture of the product, or whatever you’re wanting them to view once at the website, for an added hook on your linked tweet.

BUILDING YOUR TWITTER FOLLOWING

Building your Twitter following is important if you want to maximize your business growth potential and build credibility for your brand.  The first thing you need to remember about Twitter is that having a lot of followers does not necessarily mean you are engaging anyone.  The only ones who are allowed to have hundreds of thousands of twitter followers without proper engagement are celebrities. People will follow them no matter what, even if they’re just tweeting about what they ate for breakfast. You need to make sure you are engaging people so that they share your tweets and are interested in your business.

Think of your tweets as tiny ads for your business. Twitter is like one of your employees who is great at spreading the word about your business. So, first, make sure you are targeted in what you post.  By this, I mean do not post too broad.  Have a theme and stick to it until you think you can expand.  Focus on your business products and services, retweet and share relevant information, post photos of your products, ask your followers to follow you, poll them to find out what they like.  The point is, do not jump onto Twitter and start connecting with just anyone.  You must engage with people that want to engage. If you’re only tweeting a few times a week, that’s fine, you don’t have to worry. Start small, then slowly work your way up to be more involved with the Twitterverse and get to know your clients and potential clients through Twitter, letting them get to know you and your business.

Next, you may want to co-market with a fellow business.  Run some contests together and offer to give a product away, guest post on their behalf or feature products for each other.  The more you do for them, they more they will do for you. Social media is all about networking and connecting with other like-minded individuals. Many businesses would be happy to pair up with you and your business, giving themselves added exposure. Give it a shot, reach out to fellow business owners.  It can’t hurt, it can only help your reach and engagement opportunities.

Third, engage and engage all the time!  It is important that you do your best to have conversations with your followers.  You should respond to tweets, take time to share, put energy into communicating and having a relationship with your followers.  People like validation and reassurance, so take the time to give them that.  Let them know you are there.  Let them know that you care they are following you, and you appreciate them.  It will only entice more followers. You may forget to respond to tweets in the beginning of your new social marketing campaigns, but that’s okay. Don’t start fretting and stress yourself out about social media and giving yourself a bad name. Instead, work towards constantly replying to tweets, and then add on sharing, more tweets and more replies. Eventually, you will get to where you need to be. It’ll take time to get used to, especially if you’re not social media savvy, or don’t use it much in your own personal life.

Fourth, promote across your various social media platforms.  If you are having a contest on your Facebook page, post it on your Twitter page.  There is nothing better than expanding the view of those contests and promotions.  Your engagement is sure to grow the more platforms you promote on.

Last, but not least, just be you.  Advertise your business based on the marketing strategy you have built and do not veer off unless you see that it is drastically not working.  Show the love for your business in your way.  The more you make your statement, the more you make a name for your brand.  Remember these things: informative, interesting, interactive, personable, and promotional.

Below are a few examples of how to get a few more retweets.  Try some of these out after you get established in the Twitter world.  These will also boost your engagement rates.

• “Show your product pride” tweet: RT if you have ___.
• “Show you want it tweet”: RT if you want to go to ____.
• “Interesting fact” tweet: #DidYouKnow That the first hashtag  (#) was proposed by Chris Messina?
• Quote tweet: Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. – Helen Keller #quote
• Poll tweet: RT if you are single, Favorite if you are not.
• The “show your support” tweet: Happy birthday @TonyRomo!! RT to wish him a Happy Birthday!!
• The “exclusive content / behind the scenes” tweet: Check out some behind the scenes photos from the “#OneMoreNight video shoot!! – picture of Maroon 5

Twitter marketing strategy for business: TOOLS AND FEATURES

Advertising

Twitter allows you to create ads for a particular audience that encourages them to take an action.  With any of these campaigns, you can target via account type, device type, behavior, keywords, geographic location, language, gender, interests and more.  It is always best to focus on one audience target per campaign for more meaningful insights reporting.  Twitter has four basic campaign designs:

Build an audience: By building your audience, you are increasing the amount of people that will see your tweets, buy from you, and stay updated on your latest products and events.

Website traffic and sales: This ad campaign increases the amount of people that will visit your website from Twitter.  This campaign is a way to reach more people, increase online sales, and connect with more people.

Promote your app: Promoting your app allows more people to see that you have a mobile app and download it directly from your tweet.  Again, you can target your audience and build more engagement.

Brand awareness: Promoting your content is one of the most prominent campaigns because you can engage with a larger community of people or a select group of people.  You can get your best work in front of the people you want so that they will retweet, reply, and like more of your content.

Twitter Polls

Twitter Polls are a fun way to get followers to engage with you.  The poll can have two choice options and can remain open for up from a minimum of five minutes to a maximum of seven days.

Twitter Polls are a fun way to learn more about your follower community.  Which product is their favorite, which one would they like to see an enhancement to, which color do they like best? This is also a great way to engage with your Twitter community and to get great feedback on your products. If there’s something wrong with one of your products and it can be fixed, you will find out! It is also a good way to gauge your reach.  Ask your followers if they heard about your event or promotion.  There are a lot of ways you can learn more about your followers by using Twitter Polls.  Take advantage!

Promoted Tweets

Promoted Tweets are regular tweets that only show to a targeted audience set by you.  They do not actually show up on your follower’s timeline.  They act like a normal tweet, but only show up for those that are in your audience.  Those users can react to the tweet, just like it is a normal tweet with likes, replies, Retweets, etc.  You can set these up through your advertising campaign or through Twitter Ads. This might be a great idea to use if you have a set audience for one part of your business and another for a different part of your business. If one audience will be using your product, and another wouldn’t at all, why would you waste your time, energy and money on the audience that would never buy your product?

Quick Promote allows you to promote your best-performed Tweets at any time.  If you have a tweet that is proving to be highly engaging, why not promote it to a larger audience?  Quick Promote allows you to promote those tweets to larger audiences.

Hashtags: How to Use Them

Hashtags seem simple to use, but when it comes to marketing, likes and followers, there are a few rules to follow. First, make sure you’re using relevant hashtags. They’re used to group all tweets that have this hashtag and are of similar content together. If you’re promoting boats, using a hashtag regarding boats, or simply #boats will group this with other like-minded people. Second, make sure that they mean what you think they mean. By that, I mean search out the hashtag that you will be using. Are people using the hashtag for things similar to your products, business, etc., or are they using it in regards to something else completely? You don’t want your tweets to be falling into categories that just don’t make sense. You can use your hashtag in any part of your tweet. It doesn’t have to be solely at the end like a lot of users do. Third, don’t use these too much. If you find it annoying as a user to see so many hashtags lining up after any post you find online, others will too. You don’t want others thinking of your company in the way that you’re thinking about their terrible tweet. Fifth, don’t go to great lengths in your hashtags. Keep them short and simple and easy to understand. Keep the long, inside joke type of hashtag for your own personal tweets. Hashtags can be fun, and can help bring more followers to your business if you use them correctly. Follow those simple rules and use accordingly.

Twitter marketing strategy for business: Twitter Analytics

Every business owner should be using Twitter analytics to understand how their content is being responded to.  Your analytics page is broken down into three main pages: Home, Tweet Activity Dashboard, and Audience Insights Dashboard.

Your homepage gives you general statistics from a month-to-month look with a look at your top performing tweets and the influencers in your network.  You will see your tweet volume, profile visits, number of mentions, number of followers, your top mention, top follower, top tweet, top Twitter, Card, etc.  You can easily see what your success has been from this page and who you tend to connect with and engage with the most.

Your Tweet activity dashboard provides with metrics of every single one of your tweets.  You will know how many people saw your tweet, liked it, replied to it and Retweeted it.  You will gain an understanding of the number of impressions, number of engagements, and your engagement rates for your tweets.  You will get detailed analytics as to average per day engagements, profile clicks, link clicks, video views, etc.  This is highly effective for helping your marketing strategy.

Your audience insights board contains information about your followers.  You will get to see how well your follower trend has improved over time as well as learn more about them.  You can see more about their interests, demographics, language, geographic location, and gender, device type, behaviors, etc.  This information will also lend to helping with your marketing strategy.